Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Diplomacy Of The United States In Regard To Cuba The Cuban question had its origin in the series of events that have been narrated in the two preceding chapters—the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and the resulting paralysis of Spanish power in America. The declaration of President Monroe, enforced by the well- known attitude of England, dealt the death-blow to Spanish hopes of recovering the Southern continent. Hence the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, which had remained loyal to the king, were clung to with all the greater tenacity as the sole remains of the imperial possessions over which the successors of Ferdinand and Isabella had ruled for three centuries. The " Ever- faithful Island of Cuba " was rewarded for her loyalty by the concession of certain liberties of trade and invited to send representatives to the Spanish Cortes—a privilege which was subsequently withdrawn. Spain was now too weak to protect her two West Indian dependencies—the remains of her former glory, but her very weakness secured their possession to her. The naval and commercial importance of Cuba, " the pearl of the Antilles," made it a prize too valuable to be acquired by any one of the great maritime powers without exciting the jealousy and opposition of the others. Henceforth, to borrow the figure of a contemporary journalist, Cuba was to be the trans-Atlantic Turkey,trembling to its fall, but sustained by the jealousies of those who were eager to share the spoils. The strategic importance of Cuba, commanding to a large extent the commerce of the West Indies and of the Central American states, and, what was of vital interest to us, the traffic of the Mississippi valley, attracted at an early period the attention of American as well as of European statesmen. In a letter to Presiden... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.